Circe

The room brightened, and my father came. On his face was a look like hammered bronze. Our eyes followed him as he strode to the dais at the room’s front. The rays from his crown speared every shadow. He stared out over us. “I have spoken to Zeus,” he said. “We have found our way to an agreement.”

A soughing relief from my cousins, like wind through wheat.

“He agrees that something new moves in the world. That these powers are unlike any that have come before. He agrees that they grow from my four children with the nymph Perse.”

A ripple again, this one tinged with growing excitement. My mother licked her lips, tilting her chin as if there were already a crown on her head. Her sisters glanced at each other, gnawing on their envy.

“We have agreed as well that these powers present no immediate danger. Perses lives beyond our boundaries and is no threat. Pasiphaë’s husband is a son of Zeus, and he will be sure she is held to her proper place. Aeëtes will keep his kingdom, as long as he agrees to be watched.”

My brother nodded gravely, but I saw the smile in his eyes. I can veil the sky itself. Just try to watch me.

“Each of them has sworn besides that their powers came unbidden and unlooked for, from no malice, or attempted revolt. They stumbled upon the magic of herbs by accident.”

Surprised, I darted another glance at my brother, but his face was unreadable.

“Each of them, except for Circe. You were all here when she confessed that she sought her powers openly. She had been warned to stay away, yet she disobeyed.”

My grandmother’s face, cold in her ivory-carved chair.

“She defied my commands and contradicted my authority. She has turned her poisons against her own kind and committed other treacheries as well.” The white sear of his gaze landed on me. “She is a disgrace to our name. An ingrate to the care we have shown her. It is agreed with Zeus that for this she must be punished. She is exiled to a deserted island where she can do no more harm. She leaves tomorrow.”

A thousand eyes pinned me. I wanted to cry out, to plead, but my breath would not catch. My voice, ever thin, was gone. Aeëtes will speak for me, I thought. But when I cast my gaze to him, he only looked back with all the rest.

“One more thing,” my father said. “As I noted, it is clear that the source of this new power comes from my union with Perse.”

My mother’s face, glossy with triumph, beaming through my haze.

“So it is agreed: I will sire no more children upon her.”

My mother screamed, falling backwards on her sisters’ laps. Her sobs echoed off the stone walls.

My grandfather got slowly to his feet. He rubbed at his chin. “Well,” he said. “It is time for the feast.”

The torches burned like stars, and overhead the ceilings stretched high as the sky’s vault. For the last time, I watched all the gods and nymphs take their places. I felt dazed. I should say goodbye, I kept thinking. But my cousins flowed away from me like water around a rock. I heard their sneering whispers as they passed. I found myself missing Scylla. At least she would have dared to speak to my face.

My grandmother, I thought, I must try to explain. But she turned away as well, and her sea snake buried its head.

All the while my mother wept in her flock of sisters. When I came close, she raised her face so everyone could see her beautiful, extravagant grief. Have you not done enough?

That left only my uncles, with their kelp hair and briny, scraggled beards. Yet when I thought of kneeling at their feet, I could not bring myself to do it.

I went back to my room. Pack, I told myself. Pack, you are leaving tomorrow. But my hands hung numbly at my sides. How should I know what to bring? I had scarcely ever left these halls.

I forced myself to find a bag, to gather clothes and sandals, a brush for my hair. I considered a tapestry on my wall. It was of a wedding and its party, woven by some aunt. Would I even have a house to hang it in? I did not know. I did not know anything. A deserted island, my father had said. Would it be bare rock exposed upon the sea, a pebbled shoal, a tangled wilderness? My bag was an absurdity, full of gilded detritus. The knife, I thought, the lion’s-head knife, I will bring that. But when I held it, it looked shrunken, meant to spear up morsels at a feast and no more.

“It could have been much worse, you know.” Aeëtes had come to stand in my doorway. He was leaving too, his dragons already summoned. “I heard Zeus wanted to make an example of you. But of course Father can only allow him so much license.”

The hairs stirred on my arms. “You did not tell him about Prometheus, did you?”

He smiled. “Why, because he spoke of ‘other treacheries’? You know Father. He’s only being cautious, in case some further terror of yours comes to light. Anyway, what is there to tell? What did you do after all? Pour a single glass of nectar?”

I looked up. “You said Father would have thrown me to the crows for it.”